


they moved forward (my heart died)

by foxgloved



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Non-Binary Character, Character Study, Child Death, Depression, Families of Choice, Family, Gen, Non-Binary Chara, Non-Binary Frisk, Non-Verbal Frisk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 09:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5863063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxgloved/pseuds/foxgloved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Asgore has seen death before. He had grown up in it, in the war between humans and monsters, and he had fought in it.</i>
</p><p>  <i>The metaphorical blood on his hands scares him when he wakes up in the morning, but it is nothing compared to this. Fear lurks beneath the surface of his face -- anyone who hadn't known him would see it as passive. Maybe they'd say that he was too calm, for someone who knew he was going to lose his child.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	they moved forward (my heart died)

**Author's Note:**

> ok!!! i have no idea what the fuck this is i dont know what im doing why do i hate happiness. anyways:
> 
> **huge huge HUGE** tw for: child death / murder, implications of suicide, there isn't really any graphic violence but?? it's still worth warning for i'd say. there's also illness with chara's death, and mentions of bleeding and monster blood and monster deaths. idk if u read it pls lmk if there's anything else i should warn for
> 
> the title is from 'dead hearts' by stars (ok u gotta admit this is Such A Good asgore song....) and basically i just love fluffybuns a lot i love my dad
> 
> also the depression is mostly implied but i felt like it was worth putting a tag for anyways??? asgore never really defines himself as having depression but jsyk he Does (and ptsd too)

**i.**

Chara lies quiet and still in their bed, Asgore's furry palm spread across their forehead. Their eyes shutter closed -- their tan skin is blanched, a sheen of sweat spreading across their forehead. Their cheeks fill with pink, the flush warm to the touch.

Asgore has seen death before. He had grown up in it, in the war between humans and monsters, and he had fought in it.

The metaphorical blood on his hands scares him when he wakes up in the morning, but it is nothing compared to this. Fear lurks beneath the surface of his face -- anyone who hadn't known him would see it as passive. Maybe they'd say that he was too calm, for someone who knew he was going to lose his child.

Maybe they'd laugh at the fact that he cared for a child that was really not his own in the first place.

“Dad,” says Chara. Their voice is broken and low, and Asgore looks to them, sealing his lips together. “I'm sorry.”

“Chara,” Asgore whispers. He trembles, the slow quiver starting at his shoulders and ending in his stomach -- his fingers slick with sweat, he draws them away from Chara's head. “Do not be. Please. You've done nothing wrong.”

Chara glances up at him, their eyes barely open. “Everyone does something wrong, at one point or another,” they say. They sound wise beyond their years -- like they're so much more than this child, skin covered in dull bandages.

Ever since the day they'd first fallen, Asgore has known Chara is different than other human children he'd met. They're more --

Broken, seems to be the right word. And now they seem a lifeless shape, their tone clipped and quiet. They sink into the bed, and look away from Asgore -- they know they're going to die.

Asgore knows why they'd fallen.

He doesn't know the details, though Asriel does. He just knows that they'd fallen on purpose, to rid themself of their life, and they'd lived instead.

He wonders if this -- dying -- is on purpose, again.

Asgore almost asks why, but bites his tongue, feeling it would be worse to put them through it.

  


**ii.**

When Chara laughs, for the last time, and their eyes fall shut, Asriel cries. He sobs, his entire body contorting with the sounds -- and Asgore can only watch. He's still staring at Chara's body in the bed; if it were not for their lips pressed together, the lack of breath, they could almost be sleeping.

Asgore, himself, swallows back tears. He passes his hand across Asriel's shoulders, fleeting, but it makes Asriel flinch away, and so he exits the room.

And then, as he rests upon his throne with his head in his hands, the flowers rustle. Asgore lifts his head and wishes he hadn't -- a figure stands there, arrows through a large body and blood staining the golden flowers red.

“Asriel,” whispers Asgore, breath catching in his throat. The figure is Asriel -- there's no mistaking it -- but taller, older, and with a red gleam in his eyes. “ _Asriel_ \-- ”

A smile flickers across Asriel's face, not his own but sharp and remorseful. “I'm sorry,” he says, but it's not only his own voice. It's Chara's, alongside him, spliced together and messy, still broken and rough.

Asriel collapses forwards into the ground. Something falls from his fingers -- something lifeless, something that falls beneath him.

Chara, hands outstretched. Their expression could be called peaceful.

“ _Asriel!_ ” Asgore shouts, grief flooding him as his son's body turns to dust.

  


**iii.**

_Every human who enters the underground will die_.

He had said the words, and yet he wants to take them back, to swallow them whole and return to a time where both his children were alive. Asgore knows he cannot do this -- and so he lives alone, in the old quiet castle that doesn't feel so much like a home anymore. Toriel is gone, and all of the monsters have it out for any further humans to fall.

The Royal Scientist, W.D. Gaster, has two apprentices. Asgore has not met either of them, but from what he's heard, they are capable and wonderous individuals.

He just doesn't know how much until Gaster appears for a meeting one day, and passes over a soul that's aqua in color, still beating. Asgore stares at it, at Gaster's emotionless face, and looks to his own feet.

“What is that?” he asks. He knows.

Gaster knows he knows. “A soul,” he tells Asgore, holding it up. It casts a faint glow on Asgore's cape, making his stomach twist. “One of my apprentices -- Sans, a skeleton -- found a human, just outside the Ruins.”

“He killed them,” Asgore says. He doesn't think he could take it if Gaster was the one to tell him that.

Gaster nods.

Asgore takes the soul. He doesn't ask about the human -- doesn't ask about what they looked like, or how they died.

  


**iv.**

It is like this with the next child, too -- Sans tracks them down, and instead of a soul, Asgore gets their body. A small child, dark hair shaved on one side, fingerless gloves on their hands and their soul trembling.

It's orange, and Asgore murmurs a soft prayer. He's heard of this, for burials of humans, and he's seen enough burials of monsters to know.

But with monster funerals, the families don't get to say goodbye one last time. All they get is a pile of dust and death on their fingers -- if a loved one disappears, no one can tell if it's them that is dead. Sometimes Asgore curses being born as a monster, rather than a human -- as far as he can tell, humans have a much better life.

He places the human's soul away, grieving for them because no one else can.

“I am sorry,” he whispers to them, lifeless and weak.

And then he buries them, wrapped in bandages and quiet in the chamber to the side. The coffin lays alongside Chara's, and one for the first fallen child apart from them.

Asgore knows Chara's is empty, knows Toriel took the body to give them a proper burial in the Ruins. He slides his fingers across their coffin anyways, feeling his heart shatter all over again in his chest.

He lays flowers on all three graves, knowing two are empty.

It is, in a way, his idea of closure.

  


**v.**

“I didn't mean to do it.”

Tear tracks line Undyne's face -- there's a hand cupping her eye, and another the legs of a child. Asgore studies her -- she's not bleeding too bad, but the body she has tucked into her is still and silent.

He knows what that means, so he gets to his feet.

“It is alright,” he says, in his bumbling voice. “I know you didn't. Please, set them down here.”

Undyne does, but she won't peel her fingers away from her face so it requires Asgore's help. Dust coats the child's tutu, and Asgore rubs it between his thumb and index finger, shutting his eyes.

“Let me see your eye,” he tells Undyne.

She startles, and shakes her head. Asgore takes her wrist in his hand, careful, and tugs her hand away from her eye. He doesn't look, not yet, instead staring at the spread of green blood across her blue palm.

And when Asgore does look at her eye, he gives a sigh and pulls her to him. “I'll patch that up. Or, if you don't want to -- ”

He knows how she wears her scars, shows them off with pride. There are some things she doesn't like to flaunt, but she sees the scrapes and bruises as warrior's marks. They are something she can be proud of -- and Asgore appreciates that. He couldn't ever bear to do the same, however.

“No.” Undyne lowers her head. There's a bit of the determined spark shining in her remaining eye once again. “I don't want people to see me like this.”

Her tone leaves no argument, and Asgore bows his head. He hides the soul away once he is finished cleaning the blood from Undyne's face, and stares at the collection he's gathered.

Somewhere within him, shame burns a hole in his chest.

  


**vi.**

Gerson, the Hammer of Justice -- that's what people used to call the old turtle. Asgore remembers him, a war hero, but he's seen him since the war, and Gerson hasn't exactly aged well.

Which is why he is upset for a whole different reason when there's a purple soul laid in his palms. He looks up, stunned, at the gifter.

“Gerson,” he says, by way of greeting. Nothing else comes out, though he tries -- damn, does he try. Gerson keeps looking at him, his beard curled and long, his green skin flecked with discolored spots. He looks so old, Asgore thinks, tinted with the lighting. “What is this?”

Gerson laughs, humorless. “You know what it is, Fluffybuns.”

The nickname makes Asgore flinch. Maybe it had been something of great humor long ago, when he and Toriel were happy, but now, it just makes the pain worse.

“I -- ”

“You said to kill any human who came down here.”

 _I know_ , Asgore bites back. _And I regret it every day_.

“So I did.” Gerson says it like he's done Asgore some huge favor. In a way, Asgore thinks bitterly, he has.

This isn't what Asgore wanted, not in a million years.

He takes the trembling soul despite this, feeling sweat crawl along his back.

  


**vii.**

They are kind even to their death. In their hand they clutch a frying pan, and a stained apron falls across their small body -- the fifth human can't be more than ten years old in human years. Asgore looks over them, quiet.

 _Two more_ , whispers a voice in his head. _Then you can be done with all this_.

If he had his way, if he hadn't let his grief and sorrow get the better of him, it would have ended a long time ago. It would have ended with Chara's death; it wouldn't have even come to that, he hopes.

His brow scrunches, staring at the child as they drop their weapon -- if it could even be called that -- and fall to their knees.

“Please,” they plead. Their hair falls over their face, and Asgore shakes.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers.

  


**viii.**

The sixth human wields a gun in their hand, a cowboy hat teetering on their mess of blonde hair. They peek out from underneath the shadows covering their face, and their gun shakes in their red fingers.

Asgore looks away from them then. His spear flashes -- once, twice.

“I will do this for justice,” the child murmurs. They raise their head, and charge towards him, guns blazing -- literally -- but --

The bullets are gone, and so Asgore finds himself staring at the yellow soul that he adds to a shiny new case.

  


**ix.**

When the seventh human falls into the underground, Asgore can feel it. Somberly, he looks to the cases he's collected souls in, the way the souls seem to beat twice as fast.

Before he knows it -- before he has time to prepare, to think about how much more blood will be spilled -- the human is standing before him. They look up to him, a small figure but burning so brightly.

Asgore stumbles back. They look so much like Chara, with brown skin and choppy brown hair (cut with their own safety scissors, it seems). They have the same determination in their eyes, their soul in their hands.

There's a locket clinging from their neck, one that glints with the shimmer from the barrier above. Asgore's breath catches at the sight -- at the dangling golden chain, the heart-shaped pendant. The child is holding a dagger, and they look determined, sure, but they also look terrified.

There is no blood on their hands, Asgore can tell. They don't want to hurt anyone.

They make to drop the knife, to skip their fingers in jerky movements. Asgore remembers Chara, when they'd first fallen, speaking only in hand motions, and tears burn against his eyes.

He knows enough to read it when they say, _I don't want to fight_ with their hands.

“I know,” he murmurs.

His spear is already drawn, and his head is bowed. The threads of twilight dance through the barrier, glowing around them, and he ducks it further. He can't look the child in the eyes, not even now. Silence fills the throne room.

 _You've already killed me_ , the child says. _I don't know how many times_.

Asgore nods. He doesn't know how long he's been aware of the ability to save and reset time itself. He doesn't remember when he'd learned.

But he knows that it is possible.

He raises his spear, and --

Fire strikes his side, making him startle, falling to the side.

“What a miserable creature,” says a familiar voice, “torturing such a poor, innocent youth....”

  


**x.**

_This should be a dream_ , Asgore thinks, looking at the two figures before him. They both look so -- so young, and it has to be a dream, because there is no way they're both here. Both alive, flesh and bone.

“I'm sorry,” is the first thing out of Chara's mouth.

Asriel, though silent, nods. He worries his lip between his teeth and looks to Asgore, wide-eyed.

Asgore pulls them both in tight. _Thank you_ , he mouths over their squirming shoulders to Frisk, who flashes him a thumbs-up. They're still wearing Chara's locket.

Somehow, Asgore doesn't think Chara minds at all.

“I should be the one saying sorry,” he tells them. Tears sting the corners of his eyes, and he swallows, smiling against the sobs. “I'm so sorry, my children. You're home now.”

Chara's breath catches; Asriel lets loose a cry.

“We're home,” they agree in the same tone.

Asgore knows there is no coming back from what he's done. He doesn't deserve to be held like this, to still be king -- he'll step down, as there needs to be no king on the surface.

He doesn't deserve it, but he'll take what he gets.

He draws the children further into himself, and gestures for Frisk to join as well.

He doesn't know how they've done it. He doesn't even care.

All Asgore knows is that this is what home must feel like, and maybe the blood on his hands doesn't matter anymore. Maybe they don't care, or maybe they do.

 _It doesn't matter_ , he tells himself.

He is back with his family, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is wltchlight please scream at me
> 
> ~~lowkey hope i broke someone w this~~


End file.
